The Voter's Burden

[Ani_Ibi]

Ender:

Don’t confuse outcome with intention. If I sincerely try to resolve a problem but make things worse, I have erred but I have not sinned.

If we have made things worse out of ignorance then our responsibility is less than if we had made things worse knowing full well what we were doing.

But as beings who have been given free will and the faculties of observation and reason, it is our responsibility to be informed. And therefore ignorance is not an excuse.
vern humphrey:

It is not moral to argue for public policies from ignorance, nor to ignore evidence that we are doing harm

Ender:

There is no moral prohibition against being wrong.

Um… yes there is.

In the case of being informed and choosing to do harm: that is clearly morally illicit.

In the case of being uninformed and choosing to do harm: we are still responsible for the harm we do but not to the degree that we would be had we been informed. Why? Because as adults it is our responsibility to be informed. If we are not informed then it is our responsibility to delegate decisions to those who are informed.

The whole notion of sin is about morality. And about choosing wrongly. There is definitely a moral prohibition against choosing wrongly. This prohibition exists alongside the gift of free will.

Consider these axioms:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Ender:

You make the same assumption as your opponents: “Anyone who understands the facts (as I do) would reach the same conclusions. Anyone who doesn’t reach the same conclusion is ignorant, irresponsible, or malfeasant.” I am willing to conclude that anyone who disagrees with me is mistaken but I am unwilling to consider him culpable.

I doubt if this is a fair assessment of Vern’s stance on reasoned discourse.

 

[Ender]

But as beings who have been given free will and the faculties of observation and reason, it is our responsibility to be informed. And therefore ignorance is not an excuse.

It is hard for me to understand why you view a mistake as a sin.

… as adults it is our responsibility to be informed. If we are not informed then it is our responsibility to delegate decisions to those who are informed.

If I am uninformed I would have no way of knowing which of the opposing camps was the informed one. As an adult I consider it my responsibility to muddle through as best I can and not abdicate my obligations.

The whole notion of sin is about morality. And about choosing wrongly. There is definitely a moral prohibition against choosing wrongly. This prohibition exists alongside the gift of free will.

The conscience may help us choose between good and evil but it offers no guidance whatever between effective and ineffective. I think this is why the Church offers no opinion on where the minimum wage should be set or how our tax code should be constructed.

I doubt if this is a fair assessment of Vern’s stance on reasoned discourse.

Tell me why that doesn’t describe your position as well. Your claim is that I am morally culpable if I fail to reach the correct position on a prudential issue, that I could have arrived at the correct solution if only I was better informed, and it is my moral duty to be sufficiently informed. I reject this as a misunderstanding of moral action.

Obviosly I think you are wrong. By your definition this would mean you are ill informed and have sinned. You of course think I am ill informed and it is therefore I who sin. In my world, at least one of us is mistaken but there is no moral issue involved.

Ender

 

[JohnPaul]

Write in Pat Buchanan.

 

[vern_humphrey]

It is hard for me to understand why you view a mistake as a sin.

We do not view a mistake as a sin. We view failure to exercise diligence and prudence commensurate with the situation to be a moral failing.

It’s like backing out of a parking slot – it’s your responsibility to keep your eyes open and not hit a child, or back into another car.

If I am uninformed I would have no way of knowing which of the opposing camps was the informed one.

If you have a learning disability, that’s different. But ordinary people without such disabilities have an obligation to study and learn.

As an adult I consider it my responsibility to muddle through as best I can and not abdicate my obligations.

And that’s what we say – especially not to abdicate your obligation to be informed about issues and candidates when you vote.

The conscience may help us choose between good and evil but it offers no guidance whatever between effective and ineffective. I think this is why the Church offers no opinion on where the minimum wage should be set or how our tax code should be constructed.

The Kharisma of infallibility does not extend to economics.

Tell me why that doesn’t describe your position as well. Your claim is that I am morally culpable if I fail to reach the correct position on a prudential issue, that I could have arrived at the correct solution if only I was better informed, and it is my moral duty to be sufficiently informed. I reject this as a misunderstanding of moral action.

You are incorrect in describing our position. We believe you have an obligation, first of all to be informed and to study the issues and candidates. Second, we believe you have an obligation to track the outcome of your actions and to correct them if the result is not as anticipated.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

I was listening to someone downtown today. He said that people in our country (Canada) are uninformed because we let them get away with it. We make it OK for them to be uninformed.

And every election we hear the same carping and every election the same folks vote for the same candidates who put in legislation which caused the carping in the first place.

Waddupwidat?

How much of a ‘voter’s burden’ are those folks carrying? If the truth be known sometimes I am tempted to believe that those folks themselves are the ‘voter’s burden.’

Actually last Federal election we booted out the corrupt Liberals. Someone told me yesterday that the Catholic vote counted for much of that booting out. And I suppose its true because for a long time Catholics have voted Liberal up here. This time I guess they didn’t.

Before that, we booted out the corrupt Conservatives provincially. And got exactly the same results for our effort.

The title of this thread is the Voter’s Burden. I’d like to know how heavy that burden is for folks on CA. Seriously. It’s not a rhetorical question. What do all yall do come election time?

As for me, I read up on the issues, the platforms, listen to folks, then I phone my candidates and I negotiate pro-life with them. Any incremental change they promise me gets my vote.

Trouble is most of the parties have pro-choice written right into their constitutions. So the most I can do there is tell those candidates why I am not voting for them and why I am dragging every Catholic I know with me. (Adding that Catholics are the largest religious group in the country.)

America your federal election is close. Up here our provincial election is in October 2007 and we could have a federal election at any time (due to being in a minority government situation).

What does the Catholic lobby look like for the coming elections?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Ender: How do the following axioms relate to your point of view:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Ender: How do the following axioms relate to your point of view:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Ignorance of the world is no excuse.

The road to hell is paved with government programs.

You can look at the America of the 1950s and see how much better off we were then – low crime, relatively few out-of-wedlock births, few abortions, low rates of drug abuse, and so on. Poverty was higher, but it was dropping like a stone.

Then came the 1960s, and the Great Society. Now everything bad is up high crime, lots of out-of-wedlock births, lots of abortions, much higher rates of drug abuse, and so on

And the poverty rate has leveled off and defies any attempts to lower it.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The road to hell is paved with government programs.

Y’know I was in a conversation with some folks about garbage pickup today. This guy says that charging for garbage pickup is a sneaky way of raising taxes without calling it such and was actually an anti-family tax because families have more garbage.

Then another guy says that he lives in Northumberland (North east of Toronto). There he has to pay $1.50 per garbage bag for garbage pickup but all the recycle bins are emptied for free.

He said that the amount of garbage dropped like a stone in still water almost overnight.

Why this was interesting to me is that I observed my own reaction as a Canadian.

I instantly latched onto the anti-family tax point of view even though I had suspicions about where that guy was coming from. Later when I heard about how garbage pickup charges actually work, I knew that I had been wrong.

What was interesting to me was that I also knew how deeply hooked into ‘government program mentality’ I still am as a post-Just Society Canadian.

I basically believe that once you crunch the numbers, once you do the math, once you put a real-economy price tag on something then the wise and responsible course of action becomes as bright and shiny as the noon day sun in July. (a little Southern embellishment there just for good measure. )

 

[vern_humphrey]

Someone once told a friend of mine, “Numbers don’t tell the whole story!!”

And he replied, “No, but they sure clear out a lot of underbrush.”

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Someone once told a friend of mine, “Numbers don’t tell the whole story!!”

And he replied, “No, but they sure clear out a lot of underbrush.”

Like a brushfire in a drout. :tiphat:

 

[Ender]

We view failure to exercise diligence and prudence commensurate with the situation to be a moral failing. … It’s like backing out of a parking slot – it’s your responsibility to keep your eyes open and not hit a child, or back into another car.

There is a difference between negligence and failure to fully understand a complicated issue. You cannot equate a mistake with reckless indifference. This is what the law of unintended consequences is all about.

You are incorrect in describing our position. We believe you have an obligation, first of all to be informed and to study the issues and candidates. Second, we believe you have an obligation to track the outcome of your actions and to correct them if the result is not as anticipated.

But no matter how much I study, if I disagree with you the assumption you make is that I am not just wrong but sinful. This is the same argument that liberals have made for years: “your opposition to us is not just mistaken but immoral.” In their case the assumption is that we oppose things like raising the minimum wage not because we believe it is bad economics but because we aren’t interested in helping the poor. It so obviously would help the poor the only possible reason to oppose it is because one is indifferent to their plight. Your argument exactly parallels it: raising the minimum wage is so obviously harmful that the only reason one could support it is if one is culpably ignorant. In both cases the charge is the same: “your behavior is immoral.” The charge in both cases is unwarranted and unhelpful.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Ender: How do the following axioms relate to your point of view:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

The law applies independently of our understanding of it, but my failure to adequately comprehend the law in no way implies a moral failure on my part. Or do you suggest that every lawyer who loses a case before the Supreme Court should immediately go to confession?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I always understood this to mean that our good intentions avail us nothing if we fail to act on them. It does not mean that an action taken with a good intention that turns out wrong is sinful. The outcome of an action does not determine whether it was moral or immoral.

Ender

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The law applies independently of our understanding of it, but my failure to adequately comprehend the law in no way implies a moral failure on my part.

So the law of men has no relation to the Law of God? In spite of the Law of God being written on the hearts of men? Murder then is not a moral failure on your part? What about Theft? False Witness?

Or do you suggest that every lawyer who loses a case before the Supreme Court should immediately go to confession?

 

[vern_humphrey]

There is a difference between negligence and failure to fully understand a complicated issue. You cannot equate a mistake with reckless indifference.

When did any of us say different?

But no matter how much I study, if I disagree with you the assumption you make is that I am not just wrong but sinful.

And when did I make that assumption? Give me a quote!

 

[Ender]

So the law of men has no relation to the Law of God? In spite of the Law of God being written on the hearts of men? Murder then is not a moral failure on your part? What about Theft? False Witness?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

This principle is not applicable here.

Yep, it is applicable here. It is just more work and more time consuming that other forms of analysis.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

ATTENTION, ENDER AND VERN HUMPHREY!!!

Please, let’s drop the contentiousness. I respect both of you; you each seem like erudite and eloquent folks with good heads on your shoulders – but you are hijacking my thread!

Seriously, I left this thread because my question had been answered – to a point. I think it’s time, though, to go back to the idea of support for the darkhorse candidate who does espouse views that are in line with Catholic teaching.

I have casually looked into Sam Brownback…he seems like a good start. Would anyone else like to dialogue about this? Perhaps we can gain some momentum and actually do something constructive!

Peace,
Dante

 

[Ender]

I think it’s time, though, to go back to the idea of support for the darkhorse candidate who does espouse views that are in line with Catholic teaching.

Well, I’ve been trying to identify those topics which the Church has identified as moral issues and I maintain that it is a very short list. Perhaps you could identify some other issues where you think the Church has said that a specific response is morally required. I’m not sure what views you consider in line with Catholic teaching.

This is the debate Vern and I were having: we disagree about whether the minimum wage is a moral issue. If it is, then Church teaching is applicable but if it is not a moral issue then a candidate’s position on this topic is irrelevant in choosing someone who follows the Church’s teaching.

Ender

 

[DanteAlighieri]

From JPII’s Laborem Exercens:

…Hence, in every case, a just wage is the concrete means of verifying the justice of the whole socioeconomic system and, in any case, of checking that it is functioning justly. It is not the only means of checking, but it is a particularly important one and, in a sense, the key means.

This means of checking concerns above all the family. Just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future.

If a just wage is one that allows an adult to raise a family and provide security for its future, then it follows that a wage which does not allow that is unjust.

Working 40 hours a week at $5.15 an hour brings in an annual salary of $10,712 – before taxes, and assuming a 40 hour week every week of the year.

I got a pretty good deal on my one-bedroom apartment in Dallas – $450 a month for about 700 sq. ft. That amount projects to $5,400 over a whole year. If I worked a minimum wage job that enabled me to work 40 hours every week (as we know, many do not allow this), I would’ve had to scrape by on $5312 – again, before taxes – for the rest of the year.

Gas? Car? Insurance of any kind? Medicine? Food? Utilities (A/C is not just a luxury in Dallas)? Clothing? Shoes?

Let’s say I were married. My wife could also get a minimum wage job, which would double our income – until we got pregnant. Then what? Maternity leave? Not with pay. Day care after the child is born? Not likely. We’re back to square one, only with three people to feed instead of one.

“Get a better job”, you might say, or “go to college”. That’s all well and good, but if there is no avenue to better one’s education and provide for one’s family at the same time, then some people are not going to be able to simply “pull themselves up by the bootstraps”. The bottom line is that there are some people who cannot get a job that pays more than minimum wage for one or a variety of reasons, and if a single human being is in that situation, the minimum wage is unjust.

Now that your question is settled, shall we discuss candidates whose platforms are in line with Catholic teaching, or shall I start a new thread and let you have your way with this one?

Peace,
Dante

 

[Ender]

Now that your question is settled, shall we discuss candidates whose platforms are in line with Catholic teaching, or shall I start a new thread and let you have your way with this one?

Well, this doesn’t settle the question for me but you’re obviously not interested in continuing this particular issue so I’ll let it drop. I would have thought, however, that this would at least have pointed out the problem of determining which candidates support positions in line with Catholic teaching. You think raising the minimum wage is a moral necessity, Vern thinks it is immoral, and I think it is morally neutral. Without resolving the doubt as to which of us is correct you cannot know whether this issue is one that should be used to measure a candidate’s views with regard to Church teachings.

You need to identify the issues on which the Church has expressed a position. Take for example border security and immigration: is there a Church position on the imposition of tighter controls of illegal aliens sneaking into the country? Is there a Church position on whether taxes should be raised or lowered? Which issues do you look at to determine if a candidate’s positions are in line with Catholic teaching?

Ender